Maradona by Kusturica Page #3

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There was a feeling...

The feeling was that

the south couldn't beat the north.

They couldn't beat the north.

We went and played against

Juve in Turin

and scored six goals!

Can you imagine

a southern team scoring six

against Agnelli "The Lawyer"?

Argentina eliminated Italy

from the World Cup.

That was the biggest blow

in history for them.

Because Matarrese,

another Mafioso,

the president of the Italian league,

had already arranged the finals...

Germany and Italy.

And that's when everything

that happened, happened.

They got me out on doping.

Then they got Caniggia on doping.

But after that,

no one else.

In Italian football, with the exception

of Maradona and Caniggia,

nobody even took an aspirin.

Belgrade, Serbia

Stribor!

So you gonna meet Maradona.

You met him already?

No, never.

Not many people can

the opportunity to meet God.

IN the flesh.

So, it's special opportunity.

This is the first time I put the shirt

on because I'm meeting the God.

Come here, Stribor.

Your little kid!

When Diego came,

Belgrade was grappling

with the perplexing historical

lesson of how to love

the West once again after it

had bombed the town

and destroyed it out of

fondness for the country.

Diego looked at the ruined

Ministry of Internal Affairs building

and asked me who had done it.

I didn't want to apportion collective

blame and say "the west",

NATO, international community

or United States.

Having been raised

in the educational spirit of the west,

in my eyes culpability lies

in the actions of an individual.

"Havier Solana", I said,

and Diego just

ironically nodded his head:

"Si, sosialista espagnol"

(Yes, the Spanish socialist).

Senka, Maradona wants to

talk to you.

Hi, Senka. We love you!

A big kiss!

It was no coincidence that

Diego was the last of my friends

to speak to my mother.

The day after his visit,

my mother died

and she took all her memories

with her to the afterlife,

including the joy

felt after Maradona's voice

had cheered her up

for a moment at least.

Red Star, Belgrade Stadium

The press room...

The pitch is better

than on the day we played.

It was raining that day.

I'd swear it was this goal.

- This is the place.

- Qual?

- Aca.

- Yeah.

This is where I take it...

I make an inside cut, a feint,

and take it again.

A feint, and take it again.

It's up ahead.

When I do this,

the goalie is here,

almost outside the penalty area.

I feint, to kick hard, put my foot

under the ball to kick it over.

It was complicated,

the goalie was tall,

plus his hands over his head.

But I was able to

get under it and kick it.

Exactly. Like this...

Like this...

And the ball went like this...

I remember the goalie's face.

"Ciao!"

Did you see how

I play with this shoes?

If I had the shoes...

It could be goal.

Hi, I'm Diego.

How are you? Good afternoon!

How's the family?

What's up, maestro?

Hey there, crazy guy!

See how they know me?

I'm in the neighborhood!

How are you? What's up?

Go, Boca, go!

- Three times.

- Three time, yes.

Look who's here! Who's that man?

My grandson.

A good leg, a footballer's leg!

When we were kids

we played football

and we never wanted to stop,

we wanted to keep playing.

We played at night

and could hardly see the ball.

You know?

So what happened?

Playing in the dark

and then in the daytime made

it seem as if you played better.

You see?

The night was here in our heads.

And then,

imagining things the next day,

we felt like we played

faster and better.

It's like a foggy day,

not being able to see the

entire goal, or half of the pitch,

or the ball going out...

It's like playing

with closed eyes.

When you open them, you have

a much better idea of the pitch,

of the goal, of your opponent.

The Goal of the Century

...if cocaine is a drug,

I am a drug addict...

As we informed you yesterday,

his hospitalization

in intensive care

is due to acute hypertension

and cardiac arrhythmia.

Mr. Diego Maradona

is in a stable condition.

Black Cat, White Cat

I was dead.

But I didn't die because...

the Man up there

didn't want me to.

But I was dead.

It was like

all these black blood clots

prevented me from

opening my eyes.

It was terrible. I couldn't get out.

I remember feeling that

I wanted to

get out of there, but couldn't.

Do you understand? There

were all these black blood clots

and I couldn't get them

back into their pigeonholes

in order to wake up.

Later, Dalma told me

that Giannina kept saying:

"Daddy, you can't die, damn it!

You have to live,

to stay with me."

I didn't hear my daughter.

I was in a coma. I was dead.

Black Cat, White Cat

What happened was

the Man up there said:

"Not yet. Not yet."

"You have to keep on fighting."

"Keep on fighting."

My journeys to Buenos Aires

turned to be in vain,

and the thin line between life

and death along

which Diego moved had

become his only route.

That year he collapsed

and in life he did everything

to his own detriment.

Just as his footballing skills

were at one extreme,

with him being far

better than anyone else,

his life was at the other extreme,

being a disintegration of everything

that provides the basis

for normality in life.

I think this was why

they worshipped him no matter what.

For normality is no longer

what people crave.

It is simply too little,

and today everyone

wants much, much more.

Normality is not a precondition

for love and adoration,

and when someone

is reconciled to death

and when he or she speaks

from the heart as Diego does,

the path to sainthood is nearby.

The only problem was that

it wasn't the time for sainthood,

and that's why I think

he became a drug addict.

- Good, but no tango?

- No.

- Do I look like tango?

- Yeah.

Yes, tango.

I watched people congregating outside

cafes at dawn in Buenos Aires,

listening to the tango

and crying together.

The tango originated in 1883

in a bordello somewhere

and Jorge Luis Borges calls it

dance of grieving husbands.

The tango introduced

the idea of utter solemnity

as the dancers move backwards

and forwards.

The tango is the dance which

most obviously suggests the union

between Thanatos and Eros.

It is in this

ram-tam-tam-tam movement,

as elegant as death,

as powerful as birth,

that the basic elements of

life are united,

and changes in form are

the best indicators of

how time corrects thoughts

and how we all risk speaking nonsense

whenever we open our mouths.

The fact that the tango originated

in the bordello of yesteryear

gives it an innocence that could

never be found

in the bordello of today.

I became a sponsor

of the Church of Maradona

mainly to support

and stay in touch with

everything having to

do with Diego.

I own the Cocodrilo

in Buenos Aires.

I got involved with the kids

in the Church of Maradona

a couple of years ago

because of the wonderful things

they were doing

for my friend Diego.

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